


Slowly

by StarWolf802



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, HyuRoi, I'm so bad at tagging smh, Ishbal | Ishval, M/M, ghosts leading people to afterlife, that's a tag right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 01:25:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19121776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarWolf802/pseuds/StarWolf802
Summary: Slowly, Maes and Roy's wounds healed.





	Slowly

**Author's Note:**

> First story for this fandom! God I love angst. This got me out of a writing slump that I had been in for a while, then I immediately fell back in. Oops. Oh well! I got this beta read by the wonderful and thoughtful Mz_Mallow, and I couldn't have made it this good without them!
> 
> Please kudos and/or comment if you enjoy it :)

Ishval had a unique kind of heat. It was a dry, desperate heat, and sometimes it felt like your throat and eyes had turned into sand. The grit got into clothes and shoes, and the tiny glass shards of the desert left microscopic cuts all over any skin unlucky enough to remain exposed. Sunburns and heatstroke plagued the soldiers for most of the time they were there, and Mustang is sure the Ishvalans that died at their hands took a vicious pleasure from it. He knows he did.

 

He turns around in his chair to face the man sitting on the other side of his cluttered desk. Maes Hughes hasn’t changed much in appearance since his time in Ishval. There’s still the rectangular glasses that frame soft green eyes, hair smoothed back with the strands in front refusing to stay with the rest. Mustang knows knives still hide under his sleeves, strapped to his forearms, with one attached to the uniform at the small of his back. He knows underneath the uniform there’s the scars, one stretching over his shoulder, one cutting across his collarbone, the one that adorns his hip and disappears into his pants.

 

Ishval was hard on both of them. Unconsciously, Mustang rubs his fingers together through the fabric of his gloves. They’re not his ignition gloves, just plain white ones, but that doesn't mean they don’t feel like the other ones. The gloves that gave him his name. A bitter taste rises in his throat at the thought. _The Hero of Ishval._

 

He was no hero. None of the Amestrian soldiers stationed in that desert hellscape were. All they did was kill.

 

Mustang still gets nightmares of bloody splatters around hands still gripping guns, stains like red wine spilled on desert sand, smoke filling the air and ashes that used to be lives falling around them. Kimblee’s victims blown to bits, his own made into charcoal. Hughes’ face when he came back to camp covered in blood, cleaning his knives so intensely that he sliced his own thumb open on the edge of one. Both he and Mustang had stared at the wound for a few painful moments, and Mustang knows they were thinking the same thing. It would be so painfully easy to trudge far out into the desert and end it all with just a few quick slices.

 

But that was then, and this is now. Now it’s Hughes giving him a gentle look from across his desk, as if he can still tell exactly what Mustang is thinking. Now it’s _Colonel Mustang_ and _Lieutenant Hawkeye_ and _Lieutenant Colonel Hughes ._ Now they’re far away from Ishval and bloody streets and the sound of gunfire around every corner. Now Mustang’s hands don’t tremble when he snaps his fingers.

 

They left Ishval heralded as criminals, murderers, heroes, and soldiers, all at once. They got on trains -- Hughes back to Central, back to his girlfriend Gracia and her apple pie, and Mustang to Eastern Headquarters -- and left behind the city that they destroyed.

 

And slowly, their wounds healed.

 

~

 

Mustang opens his eyes slowly, squinting at the piercing brightness around him. His chest and throat both feel hot and tight, like a band of iron is wrapping around them, and he sits up, bringing his fingers to his throat. When he pulls his hand away, crimson stains his ignition gloves. The patch of fabric above his heart has a slowly spreading red blotch, too.

 

The pain and heat slowly fade as he looks around. He knows this place. The only things missing are The Gate and Truth. The imposing iron and stone of the gate and Truth’s misty, shadowy form are nowhere to be seen. Mustang scrambles up, looking down at the bullet wound in his chest again. He knows enough to realize that it’s a fatal wound, and even if it wasn’t, the one in his throat will be. Strangely, though, the pain is ebbing away like the sea at low tide, leaving only a bone deep exhaustion in its wake.

 

Memories trickle back to him in bits and pieces:, the sound of shouting, dark walls dripping with water. It was supposed to be a simple job of rounding up a group of criminals that were smuggling drugs and humans into Central. By the time he realized that there was more than one leader, it was too late. He remembers flying backwards as one shot hit him in the chest and the other in the throat, tearing through skin and muscle as if it was tissue paper. A surprisingly painful stab, unrelated to the gunshot, hits his heart as he thinks of Hawkeye’s face watching him as he fell, her hazel eyes wide with disbelief and shock.

 

“You need to be more careful, Mustang.” The voice shocks him from his thoughts and he freezes, blood roaring in his ears.

 

Mustang slowly turns around, barely daring to even acknowledge the hope that’s making tears sting his eyes.

 

Maes Hughes smiles, head tilted to the side a little bit. Mustang just stands there for a second, eyes wide. He's...it's Hughes. After all this time...it's Hughes.

 

"You look like you've seen a ghost, Roy," Hughes says, voice exactly the same as days he'd sit on the corner of Mustang's desk and playfully tease him. "What's wrong? Didn't want to see me?"

 

"I… No, I just…" Not for lack of effort, Mustang can't stop the tears welling up in the corners of his eyes. Hughes looks the same way he always did, wearing his dark blue uniform, hair sticking up in the signature curl and scruff peppering his jaw.

 

The only thing off is the gash across his upper arm that's still dripping blood, and the gunshot wound just below his ribs that's staining his uniform dark red. Blood leaks from the corner of his mouth, but he doesn't seem to notice or care.

 

A lump unrelated to the wound in his throat rises as Mustang takes in the sight of Hughes. Walking up to that phone booth to find the body of his best friend slumped in a pool of blood...he doesn't think he'll ever forget how _small_ Hughes suddenly looked.

 

But he's here now again, in front of Mustang, alive and breathing and upright. He's smiling, and he's looking at Mustang like he's the only thing he's ever wanted. The tears spill over and roll down Mustang's cheeks, but he doesn't react in the slightest.

 

Hughes holds out his hand. "Come here, Roy."

 

Mustang stumbles forwards, almost falling. He doesn't want to be weak like this, he doesn't want to let Hughes see the effect this is having on him, but he can't help it. The morning after _That Night_ _,_ as Mustang has taken to calling it in his head, when he woke up and had to face the reality of a world that Hughes wasn't in, he barely had the strength to pull himself out of bed.

 

But...no more of that. He takes another step, and another, and disregards Hughes' hand in favor of throwing his arms around him and burying his face in his chest.

 

"I've missed you," he says, and his voice is thick with tears. "And Gracia misses you, and Elicia still thinks that it's you coming home every time someone opens the door."

 

"I know," Hughes says simply, letting Mustang cling to him, starting to rub his back gently.

 

The feeling takes Mustang back, back to nights in Ishval spent holding tight to Hughes and trying to forget the sound of screams, the smell of burning flesh, the choking taste of ashes. Hughes would sit there in his cot, down to just his pants and shirt, and let Mustang tremble in his arms, pretending he didn't hear Mustang choke back sobs.

 

Mustang's fingers are knotted tightly in Hughes' shirt. He knows he's getting blood all over him, but doesn't care. He doesn't want Hughes to leave him ever again.

 

"Come on, Roy," Hughes whispers. "It's alright. You're alright."

 

The familiarity of it makes Mustang nearly sob, nodding wordlessly. He's missed this, missed _him_ _,_ so much. He was so tempted to stick that gun in his mouth and taste it again, taste the gunpowder and metal and leave the MPs to clean up the body of Roy Mustang. He couldn't, though. Not without fulfilling his final goal.

 

Mustang pauses, opening his eyes and pulling away slightly. He was so caught up in seeing Hughes again that he didn't even realize… He'll never be Fuhrer, now. And Hawkeye…

 

Mustang swallows heavily. It tastes like iron.

 

As if he can read his thoughts, because Hughes always had a knack for reading his face like Mustang was a goddamn open book, Hughes smiles. There's a hint of pity in it.

 

"This is it, Mustang," he whispers. "The end of the line for you. No Fuhrership. I'm sorry."

 

"I…" Mustang stares beyond Hughes at the blinding whiteness. What was he going to say? That he doesn't want to die? Well, neither did Hughes. Mustang doesn't think he has a choice in the matter.

 

Still, he can taste bitterness as he drops his eyes to the gunshot wound still darkening his uniform with blood. Hawkeye will think it's her fault. She always does whenever he gets hurt. His team… Fuery and Havoc and Breda and Falman, all of them so loyal and hard-working, and he's just going to up and die on them

 

But he looks back up again, meeting Hughes' eyes. If he does have to die right here and now, at least he has someone to do it with.

 

Hughes seems to understand the look that Mustang gives him. He smiles again, small and resigned, and wraps his arm around Mustang's shoulders, turning him around.

 

"Come on, buddy. Let's go."

 

And slowly, their wounds heal. 


End file.
